Amendment B

Much has been written about the proposed Amendment B, which is being voted on by presbyteries across the country. Voting results are here.

The present article reads like this:

"Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament."

The proposed language reads like this:

"Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by the church by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards."

Several reflections on this. First, the new amendment seems to separate what God has joined together. That is, the new amendment seems to divorce obedience to scripture from obedience to Jesus Christ. It is difficult to envision a possibility of being obedient to scripture and being disobedient to Jesus Christ, or being obedient to Jesus Christ and yet disobedient to scripture.

Of course, Peter clearly violated scriptural standards (as he understood them) by visiting the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10. And yet, this "disobedience" was to the inherent "uncleanness" of a Gentile. What the early Christians came to understand is that God does not judge people based on their ethnicity.

And so, argue the folks in favor of Amendment B, the church has long excluded GLBT people from ordained office over who they are, as though they have been prejudged.

However, the issue is not GLBT orientation. Never has been. Never will be. The issue has been GLBT "practice". The original Amendment B speaks of "practice", behavior, not orientation.

Still, the separation of obedience seems, at best, artificial, and at worst, an abdication to post-modern sensitivities.

One of the issues that has come up. In a very fine blogpost by Robert Austell, he describes the debate over the amendment in his presbytery. His conclusions were the following:

Overall Observations
1. Tone: on the whole, the pro-B folks were warm, genuine, full of faith, and focused on Jesus, Scripture, people, church unity, and justice (in that order); those against Amendment B, on the whole, were saying what was wrong with the pro-B folks and their arguments.

2. Content – Scripture: the pro-B folks lived up to their declared attentiveness to Scripture; the pro-B 5-min. presenter demonstrated how she interpreted each of the nine passages mentioning homosexuality and why she was voting consistent with her beliefs; the rebuttal to that was dismissive (“that’s poor exegesis”) rather than demonstrating equal or better attentiveness to Scripture.

3. Content – Morality: far more than I’ve heard in debate before, there was a steady and positive picture painted of the homosexual relationships in question being primarily long-term, committed, and monogamous. Those against Amendment B responded by attacking that premise, but it came across as attacking a class of people and was not effective. I think the real answer to this, which will come up again in other contexts, is to challenge the GLBT folks to define a “Christian gay sexual ethic.” That gets at the deeper theological question of “Is there any sexual sin?” “What is sin? What is holiness? What are standards for church leaders if all sexual issues are taken off the board?”

4. Presence: as noted from one analysis of the Western NC vote, the pro-B line at the mic was longer. More than once, looking for the alternating position, the question was called out “are there any ‘con’ in line?” The impression I got from the front was that there were few willing to speak against and many waiting and wanting to speak in favor. When the motion came to end debate, the line was still 10-12 people long, and the impression was that they were all for Amendment B.

5. Demographics: Charlotte is a large metropolitan area, and it is probably to be expected that votes would mirror culture (cosmopolitan!) more than in more rural areas. Having said that, the Presbytery of Charlotte has a large number of rural and smaller town churches. Many smaller churches are not involved (ever) in the life of presbytery, and many did not send elders to vote. Additionally, the presbytery has given almost all of the smaller churches who ever come to presbytery meetings an additional elder vote in order to correct the imbalance between ministers and elders. As many as 50-75 votes were not cast because small or rural churches did not send two or even one elder. Many of these would be more conservative. Conservatives did write, call, and otherwise invite these folks… to no avail.

These are excellent observations, and well worth pondering. I have often thought about how much easier it is to be "for" something than "against" something. Even animated films like "Monsters, Inc." have picked up on the idea that there is more power in laughter rather than in fear.

So the question for us, on the "no on B" side is this: how will we articulate our faith in a way that is both winsome and welcoming, true to scripture and people's experiences, and in a positive and engaging style rather than being dismissive?

Now, it could very well be that the whole exercise is pointless. I remember voting on the original Amendment B in 1997. Every few years, our GLBT friends will push through another amendment to overturn the original "B". And every few years, the attempt crashes and burns. The end of the original Amendment B may very well be in the future, whether three months from now, or thirty years from now. So why keep fighting? Our GLBT friends seem to view this as a war of attrition. Mark D. Roberts has blogged on this extensively, and his analysis is quite good.

Our presbytery votes on this amendment, and others, on March 10th. Would you pray for grace, clarity, and charity? [SDG- JS]